The Beast of Craggy Island, also known simply as The Beast, is a mythical creature which many of Craggy Island's inhabitants believe is terrorising sheep,
Biography
There are many conflicting rumours as to the Beast's physical form. It has been described by Hudd Hastings as being "as big as a jaguar" and it's entire face being nothing but "big, white teeth as sharp as knives" while Mrs. Doyle believes it to be a "sort of giant fox". Dougal describes the creature as being the size of four cats, having a retractable leg "so it can leap up at you better", luminus in the dark, having four ears (two of which seve as "backup ears", and some of which are actually inside the creature's head), claws the size of cups, an unexplained phobia of stamps, a magnetic tail (according to Mrs Doyle), having "four arses" where a mouth should be (in contrast to Hudd's earlier description), only having eyebrows on Saturdays and it's yawn supposedly sounds like "Liam Neeson chasing a load of chickens around in a barrel".
The beast is discovered to be a hoax by Fathers Ted Crilly and Dougal McGuire. Ted exposes Fargo Boyle as having used bribery to spread rumours of The Beast to manipulate the "King of the Sheep" competition. The mysterious howling noise which was effecting Chris the Sheep's nerves is revealed to be 'Terrible Monster- Type A', a track from the BBC Sound Effects record, used by Fargo with speakers hanging in trees, in order to frighten his own sheep and (with Ted's help) stage a "miraculous recovery on the day of the competition" to improve his chances of winning.
Giant Reed is confused when Hudd describes it as being "as big as a jaguar".
Trivia
- Part of Dougal's description of the Beast was different in the episode's script, with him saying that "instead of a mouth, it's got two faces." Ardal O'Hanlon didn't like the line as written, and so during filming changed it to "instead of a mouth, it's got four arses."
Appearance
- Chirpy Burpy Cheap Sheep (mentioned)
